Love Can Do All But Raise the Dead
by Violetrose93
Summary: Drew took May's death extremely hard. A year later, he's still sitting next to her grave, wondering if she would still be alive if he'd confessed his feelings. Contestshipping oneshot.


**So I had a bad day. Obviously. **

The graveyard was a peaceful place. It was tucked away from the road, shielded by huge, leafy oaks. The grass was soft, covering the mounds of earth and softening the sharp edges of the gravestones. A wrought iron fence enclosed the area, and white marble benches provided areas for mourners to sit and rest.

On one was such bench was a green haired boy, tears streaming down his face. It had been almost a year, and Drew still didn't want to believe it. He almost _couldn't_ believe it, even while staring at the smooth polished rock that read _May Maple_.

Every time he came, he tried to talk to her, to say something, but his grief always choked him. At first, Solidad had come as well, but as time went on, she had understood that he needed to work through this on his own.

So now he was all alone, with just the dead and the haunting thought of what could have been for company.

"May, I . . ." Drew shuddered and fell silent, feeling the sobs rattling around in his chest. When he had first heard about the accident, he hadn't been like this. In fact, he hadn't cried at all. Drew remembered just sitting there, trying to work through what Solidad had told him.

He had thought she was lying, playing some sort of cruel joke. But Solidad wasn't like that. Maybe if it had been Harley, but Solidad? Never. Which was when Drew realized that she was telling the truth. He had stood up and left, going to find a quiet place to try and be alone with his thoughts.

Because May Maple could not be dead. It wasn't possible. There was nothing that could have extinguished those blue eyes, nothing that could have silenced that laugh. Drew just couldn't reconcile the fact that he'd never speak to her again, never tease her again, never give her another rose. He's been so sure that there had been a mistake.

Of course, the funeral had laid any doubts he had to rest. She had looked just like an angel, lying there so still, dressed all in white. But even that hadn't looked right. May never wore white. She was all about colors, about the vibrancy of life. Seeing her, pale and silent and unmoving, drove home the reality.

Drew had fled the church, tears finally filling his eyes. He had collapsed somewhere in the woods, where he lay, sobbing, well into the night. By the time he collected himself enough to walk back, everyone else was gone, and the grave was already filled in.

He'd slept there that night, lying right next to the headstone, wishing so desperately that he was under the ground instead of her. Solidad came and found him the next day, forcing him to leave. The only reason Drew had gone with her was because she told him he could always come back.

Of course he could. It wasn't like May was going anywhere.

So Drew had come back the next day. And the day after that, and the day after that. Days turned into weeks which turned into months which, eventually, turned into a year. An entire year without her.

Drew still wasn't any closer to coming to terms with her death than he was the day she died. To him, the world seemed like nothing but a gaping hole, filled with nothing but terrible, heartbreaking tragedy. The minute he found something good, it was taken away from him.

Trembling, he stood up and laid a single rose on the grave, placing the one from the day before in a wire holder next to the gravestone. The rose was red, of course. He'd given her roses for years, silently trying to work up the courage to tell her how he felt. He'd never been that good with words, and it was easier to hand her a rose and hope she caught on.

May had kept every one. Drew hadn't known until her mother, Caroline, had taken him into her room. There, on a table by the window, was a vase filled with dried roses. She'd carefully pressed every rose before placing it in the little crystal vase, making sure that the flowers sat in the sun.

Drew remembered nothing more about that day other than coming here and breaking down, whispering her name over and over again into the silence. When it had begun to snow, Solidad had to force him to wear a coat, telling him that allowing himself to freeze to death wouldn't bring May back. But when it rained, Drew just sat there, letting the water beat against his body. It felt good to have something hit him from the outside, inside of the endless pain that battered him from within.

"Hello."

Drew looked up, startled, to see a girl in a white dress standing by the gate. For a minute, his heart had leapt, and for some odd reason, he'd been convinced he'd been about to see May. But this girl had blonde hair instead of brown, and hazel eyes instead of blue.

"You come here every day," the girl said, coming to sit next to Drew. He just turned away and stared at the ground, wondering why people just couldn't let him be alone with his grief.

"What was she like?"

Drew turned to glare at the girl, but stopped when he saw her eyes. They were gray, and filled with nothing but sadness. He had been so used to everyone looking at him with pity, trying to mask their own feelings behind sympathy and compassion. It felt good to look at this girl and see that she wasn't hiding what she was feeling. The girl's curly hair moved slightly in the breeze, and she looked at Drew, waiting for an answer.

"A friend," Drew managed, his voice thick with emotion.

"I'd say much more than a friend, considering how much time you spend here crying." 

Drew looked up, astonished that she'd say something so brazen. But her face wasn't malicious, and her eyes weren't cruel. She stared at him, matter-of-factly, and waited for him to respond. When Drew didn't, she sighed.

"Someone once said, 'Love can do all but raise the dead'."

"Emily Dickinson," Drew said quietly. "May used to talk about her poetry all the time."

The blonde girl nodded. "You never told her that you loved her, did you?"

"No." That one word held every regret, every shard of pain that had been tearing Drew apart for the last year. Everything broke over him at once, and, not for the first time, he silently begged to be allowed to join May. Anything was better than this.

"Look at me, Drew." Drew looked up into her impossibly green eyes, wondering dizzily if they had always been that green.

"You have to tell her," the girl whispered, her eyes intense. "You have to say the words out loud, otherwise you'll carry that weight for the rest of your life. You're still alive. So live. There are many fates worse than death, Drew, and to waste your life is the worst of them all."

Drew stared at the tombstone, a thousand memories of May rushing through his mind.

"I . . . I loved her," he breathed. "From the minute I saw her. I didn't know it, but I loved her. I tried so hard to tell her, but I was so scared. I wasted all that time. If I told her, she'd still be alive. She wouldn't have gotten in that car. We would've stayed in Johto, and she would still _be_ here. I'd give anything to back and tell her I loved her."

The thick, choking grief that had overwhelmed him for so long didn't come. Instead, tears trailed slowly down his face, falling lightly to the ground.

"Hold that thought," the girl whispered, and Drew glanced up into her light brown eyes one last time.

She turned and walked away, disappearing behind a large statue of an angel. Drew stood stock still for a moment, wondering what had just happened. He stood up and hesitated, unsure of if he should follow her. He took a small step, but when he tried to call after her, he realized he didn't know her name.

_I didn't tell her my name either_, Drew thought in shock. _How did she . . ._ The thought trailed off as Drew heard something from the other side of the statue. He broke into a run as another whimper broke through the silence. His first thought was that the girl had collapsed and needed help.

And initially, that's what looked like happened. Drew rounded the statue to find a girl in a white dressed curled up at the base. But her hair was brown instead of blonde, straight instead of curly, and when she opened her eyes, they weren't brown or green or gray or hazel, but blue. A deep, sapphire blue.

"Drew?"

He fell. His legs folded under him and his knees hit the ground, but he didn't care. His eyes never left May's face, and he suddenly dug his nails into his palms, dug them in so deep that the pain made him cry out. He needed to make sure this wasn't a dream, some cruel trick that his mind was playing on him.

"What's wrong?" May asked in alarm.

Slowly, Drew reached out a hand. Tentatively, he stroked her face, sobbing breathless when his fingers met skin. He threw arms around her, crushing her against him. May returned the embraced and buried her face in the crook of his neck.

"I love you, I love you, I love you," his whispered over and over again.

May pulled away and looked into his eyes. "You never told me."

"I'm telling you now," Drew said softly, and he kissed her. May kissed him back, her lips soft against his own. Drew pulled away, just so he could look at her face again.

"I guess I should tried dying earlier. It would have saved a lot of time," May grinned crookedly at him. Only May could make a joke like that.

"I can't believe you're really here," Drew murmured. "But how . . ."

Movement over May's shoulder caught his eye. The girl in the white dress was standing a few yards away, sunlight filtering through her hazy form.

"Sometimes, love really can raise the dead," she whispered, her voice coming to Drew like a sigh on the wind. And then she was gone, nothing but a memory.

In his arms, May stirred and turned, trying to look at what had caught Drew's attention.

"What is it?" May asked. Drew stood up and helped May to her feet.

"Something good."

**But it got slightly better. I'm a sucker for happy endings. Happy Friday everyone, and please review!**


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